And yes, that lower graph is quite revealing. I have been saying something to myself that I will say here. And that is, if it's mechanical, it's going to break. That, to me, sums up just about everything that is wrong with the world.
However...and this is a very interesting path...is it wrong? As an engineer, I get can get powerful results by looking at extreme conditions.
Look at the beginning. I doubt people generally suffered much. They simply died. But we were not comfortable, and we had to work for what we got. I'll confine it to physical, because this has so many branches and ramifications. We're in a cave, and trying to find warmth. Is it wrong to light a fire? And is that not where it all begins? So now we have fire. Then we learn to garden. Then we begin to invent things that are more complex in mechanical nature. And then we grow faster in population.
I mention this because right now we are not just in a time of great irritation and anxiety and disgust, but in an absolutely wonderful, prolific, inventive culmination of coordinated minds. This huge population has enabled mankind to almost literally become one mind. Genome projects, cures for diseases, etc.
Now if I look at this in the reverse direction, I see destruction on a vast scale now. I see frivolity at the cost of the very system that supports our lives. Do we continue on to some ultimate destination? Who knows where this really leads. Perhaps there is a place where none of us can imagine where this goes, which is where we were intended to go. (I'm avoiding social and religious implications, as they are potentially leaping out at us). And if so, then curbing our behavior would be counterproductive.
But if we are going too far, then if we do reverse our actions, at which point in our evolution of modernization do we return to? It is after all an equation of how many people are using resources, and what resources are being used. We can use only natural resources, at which point we're really back to where we started. It's pretty clear that this population can only be sustained unnatrually. And I've had arguments regarding what is natural with a number of very well educated people. I am not playing with semantics. A transmission is not found in nature. But a shovel can be the bark of a tree. It is natural.
It's pretty hard to exclude the religious and social aspects to this. And even as someone who follows Christian philosophy, I see no place for religion in this since no one really knows the truth. So are we happier or not? Are we healthier or not? Is our intelligence worth knowing or not? My answers tend to cause me distress, since my answers are yes. My extremely modern mountain bike gives me extreme pleasure. Watching the refined stories that are told in movies like Random Harvest, or A Tale of Two Cities, is satisfying. My hydronics are so nice compared to the years of chopping wood I did for a wood stove. It all stems from standing on the shoulders of those who thought and created and invented before us. I often think of life as a Kamikaze suicide run. Utter insanity. An unsustainable straight line. And it's a few who would like to see it sustained, against the world of those who would prefer to be comfortable and entertained.
I suppose it comes down to the question- Is there a purpose.
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